Snake Bytes 8/4: Forgetful

Diamondbacks News

[D’backs.com] What do D-backs need to do to get rolling? - The D-backs get their first off-day of the season Monday and boy, do they need it. Arizona’s offense struggled once again Sunday as the Dodgers took three of four in the series, this one by a 3-0 margin at Chase Field to drop the D-backs to 3-7 on the year. “These are grinding times right now,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “And these are tests. These are tests for our team and our players. We’re going to keep fighting. That’s all we know how to do. We’re going to grind through these tough times. We know that better days lie ahead. To get there, we’ve got to accomplish some things piece by piece and day by day. We’ve got to keep working.” The schedule gets no easier for the D-backs, who have the Astros coming to town for three games starting Tuesday before heading back out on the road for a six-game trip to San Diego and Denver.

[Arizona Sports] Diamondbacks are in trouble, but ‘there is still time,’ says Kurkjian - The Arizona Diamondbacks’ 2020 season has not gone well. The abbreviated 60-game campaign is off to a sluggish start, with Arizona (3-7) sitting 28th in MLB in team batting average, dead last in home runs, fifth-worst in team ERA and fifth-worst in WHIP. The D-backs are struggling, no matter how you slice it. ESPN baseball analyst Tim Kurkjian, whose employer was nice enough to only rank the D-backs 20th in its latest power rankings, said that while the D-backs clearly are in trouble, all hope is not lost. “It’s a 60-game season and 10 games is a sixth of your season, and it hasn’t gone well,” Kurkjian told Arizona Sports’ Doug & Wolf. “But there is still time. The Rockies (6-2) can’t be this good. I’ve loved the Padres (6-4), but I’m not sure they’re this good. But the Dodgers (7-3) are better than they’ve played to this point. So the Diamondbacks are already in a little bit of trouble after a sixth of the season.”

[The Athletic] Five numbers that explain the Diamondbacks’ disappointing start - An expected strength, the starting pitching has been mediocre at best. A bullpen that figured to be one of Arizona’s best in recent years has been a minefield. A lineup that looked to be deep has been one of the meekest in the game. Even the defense and baserunning have been suspect at times, although not nearly to the same extent as the arms and the bats. It might be easier to ask what isn’t going wrong than what is, but we’ve boiled down the Diamondbacks’ sluggish start into five telling metrics.

Around The League

[ESPN] MiLB president installs new committee to handle MLB negotiations - Five weeks after Minor League Baseball president Pat O’Conner announced the cancellation of the 2020 season, he disbanded the MiLB committee that was handling negotiations with Major League Baseball over the future structure and governance of the minors. ESPN confirmed a report Monday night by Baseball America that said O’Conner installed a new committee — including Triple-A team presidents Sam Bernabe of the Iowa Cubs and Ken Schnacke of the Columbus Clippers — that is “viewed by numerous MiLB owners as having much closer ties to O’Conner and more sympathetic to attempts to save St. Petersburg’s MiLB offices and MiLB’s independence.”

[MLB.com] Cards report 7 players, 6 staffers with COVID - After a weekend of growing concern that there might be a coronavirus outbreak in their clubhouse, the Cardinals learned Monday that nearly a fourth of their roster has tested positive for COVID-19. The Cardinals have 13 confirmed positive COVID-19 tests in their traveling party. Of those 13, seven are players and six are staff members. As a result, Major League Baseball has postponed this week’s series in Detroit against the Tigers, which was already moved back and rearranged after positive tests postponed the Cardinals’ series in Milwaukee. Eight of the 13 are experiencing some mild symptoms of the virus, ranging from headaches to low-grade fevers, but none have been hospitalized. The symptoms began after the positive tests, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said Monday. The other five are asymptomatic. All 13 members of the organization who tested positive have left Milwaukee via car and returned to their homes.

[Brew Crew Ball] Shelby Miller opts out of 2020 MLB season - Lorenzo Cain became the first player within the Milwaukee Brewers organization to opt out of the 2020 season over the weekend, saying in a statement on Saturday that “this is the best decision for me, my wife, and our three kids.” Another veteran big leaguer joined Cain in choosing to sit out the rest of the summer earlier today, as Shelby Miller informed the club that he too has opted out of the 2020 regular season. Unlike Cain, Miller was not a member of the active 30-man roster for the Brewers but he was a part of the 60-man player pool and had been working out at the club’s alternate training site in Appleton. Miller has been something of an ongoing project for the Brewers; he first inked an MiLB deal with the franchise last summer, visiting the vaunted “pitching lab” in Arizona and making eight starts in the minors before re-signing with the club on another minor league contract before the 2020 season.

[CBS Sports] MLB schedule impacted by coronavirus: 21 total games postponed, including Cardinals-Tigers series - Major League Baseball’s season is not yet two weeks old, but the schedule has been changed multiple times due to COVID-19 cases across the league. As many as 20 members of the Miami Marlins, including 18 players, have tested positive for the coronavirus since Opening Day. The Cardinals are the second team dealing with an outbreak, as 13 members of St. Louis’ traveling party, including seven players, tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days. The latest round of Cardinals test results forced MLB to cancel the team’s second consecutive series. As of Monday, 21 different MLB games impacting a total of nine teams had been postponed due to COVID-19 cases. Three of the league’s 15 games (20 percent) originally on the slate for Friday, Saturday and Sunday were not played as scheduled. Sunday’s doubleheader between the Brewers and Cardinals was postponed, meaning one of the games in their originally scheduled three-game set was called off twice.